Goal-oriented

Definitions: (1) focused on the end or final purpose; (2) characterizes one who intends to accomplish everything he or she sets out to do

Music: “Winter Wonderland” {1934}
Later on, we’ll conspire,
As we dream by the fire
To face unafraid,
The plans that we’ve made,
Walking in a winter wonderland.
— Felix Bernard (1897-1944) American Composer
— Richard Bernhard Smith (1901-1935) American Lyricist

Quotes:
• The limitations define how you are to proceed. — Gerard “Jerry” Vincent Hubert Downs (1949-) American photographer & writer
• One has half the deed done who has made a beginning. — Horace (65 BC-8 AD) Roman lyric poet
• The last step depends on the first. The first step depends on the last. — Rene Daumal (1908-1944) French poet
• Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get. — George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish playwright
• After 5,000 “failed” experiments on the light bulb: “I had 5,000 ways of proving that I was getting closer to where I wanted to go.” — Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) American inventor
• Purpose is a general direction toward which you wish your life to move. Resolutions, on the other hand, are goals that help contribute to your purpose. Once you have stated your purpose, set up a plan to achieve it. Look at the resources that are available, and think about which ones are needed. It’s important to have a taste of success. Also, make sure you reward yourself when you meet your short-term goals. — Dr. George Sheehan (1918-1993) “Peak Performance! Coaching Your Internal Team,” Taking Care Magazine
• Having a goal sometimes limits your flexibility. — Judy Kain (1948-) American empath
     Note: Don’t be so narrowly focused on your goal that you forget your higher purpose.

Inspiration: You alone do not need to arrive at all of the determination you need to experience your goals. You need not be the sole cause and effect of your results. As a matter of fact, if you depend only upon yourself, your results will be limited to your personal sphere of reality. If you expand to include other people, you have opened yourself up to a much broader range of possibilities.
     Did you ever wonder what magnificent music Mozart or any of the great composers would have been able to produce with today’s technology; what about other great historic inventors, artists, and engineers? We can and should build on the accomplishments made before us.
     When you expand beyond personal and collective motives, to include cosmic principles, you will be connecting yourself to universe reality – unlimited creativity. The more you choose the source, the closer you will emulate the source. As you become it, the more you will be its instrument, and its creativity will flow through you.
     THE source is personal – a wise and loving God. But even if you have come to the conclusion the universe is nothing but a grand mechanism, doesn’t it still behoove you to allow your goals to be aligned with the workings of the larger system? Wouldn’t your greatest successes be when you work with what works?
     One of the greatest gifts of life is choice. Your range of choice is as broad as your consciousness. Goal setting focuses your mind and action on attainment and results. When you align your mind with the Higher Mind and target your goal on your highest ideas and ideals, you will truly be on the road to success.

Comments:
• The question “Where will I get the time?” is valid. If you are dedicated to your family and holding a job, then feel good you are succeeding in that. You must begin from where you are and add to what you are already doing. All the more reason you choose goals (and qualities necessary to attain those goal) that are highly motivating. You will have to really want it to squeeze out some more energy and enthusiasm in your “free” time if you are already putting in a full effort.
• Inspiration, intuition, instinct, and luck are alternatives or additions to goal setting.
     The goal may be physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual, but you cannot get to it without focusing on and acquiring those qualities needed for you to experience what you choose.

Consideration: Contemplate the difference between that which is value and that which has value.

Observation: One cannot underestimate the need for discipline in goal setting. The thing to remember is who is in control. Is your discipline being imposed from without – parents, bosses, society, religion, or friends – or is it being generated from within? Are you fulfilling your needs because of your inner desires?
     It is good to have a combination of both the outer and the inner. But when an external force becomes too controlling, meet it with the wisdom of an appropriate inner force. You could choose to fight fire with fire, in which case dominance will be achieved by the one with the superior strength. Or you could choose to avoid the fight by using communication, reason, law, justice, inventiveness, resolve, and understanding.
     In order for internal discipline to take precedence, one must be highly motivated. External motivation is often a forced motivation. Internal motivation may have fear or pity as elements, but can be made more powerful with hope, responsibility, curiosity, and the desire to serve.

Tips:
• You are an end in yourself – work for you as a goal.
• Beware of being a slave to your goals. Be happy about your goals each day you are accomplishing them.
• Decide on a project you are excited about and looking forward to; one that will draw you out of bed in the morning.
• Do not listen to those who say it cannot be done. It is your goal. You know you can do it. It is your vision, and you will do it at your pace.

Advice: If you notice you are motivated by the “going away from” method of action, then understand that impulse in yourself. Consciously decide to be less negative by using the strategy of positive acquisition.
     Understanding of the risk, the willingness to confront the challenge, and the courage to look your fear in the face necessitates you be conscious of the difficulties you may encounter. The key is that you are in control of your choices. After all, if your idea/ideal is strong enough to overcome the negative, then it certainly has the thrust, once it gets off of the ground, to sail for a while. Then all you need to do is to continue the propulsion and keep adjusting the thrusters to maintain course and speed.

Admonition: Keep on plugging, keep choosing, keep doing what you need to be doing. Take action, have courage, and you will grow and move forward, no matter where your starting place is.

Questions:
•  Who do I admire?
•  What do I admire?
•  What is my life’s purpose?
•  Why have I chosen this goal?
• What will be the rewards of success?
•  How close to my self-image is my goal?
• How will things change when I succeed?
•  What price will I pay to achieve my goal?
•  Who will give me feedback as I progress?
•  What is my contribution to my life, to all life?
•  Who will support and contribute to my success?

Goal Setting:
Life Purpose
1. What does your success look like?
2. List two or more of your unique positive qualities. How do you like to express these qualities?
3. Combine into a single statement. Example: “I am communicating with clarity and kindness my understanding and appreciation of reality in a practical and creative way.”

Qualities Needed to Accomplish Your Goals:
1. Desire
2. Motivation
3. Determination
4. Skill, talent
5. Stick-to-itiveness

How to Set Goals:
1. Identify your life purpose.
2. Decide
    • on your strategy
    • on your tactics
    • on your target
3. Start.
4. Act: Delegate or do it yourself.
5. Continue – be persistent.
6. Finish what you start.

Earl Nightingale (1921-1989) A Course in Winning audio tapes
1. Select a motivating and compelling goal.
2. Define it in your own words – be specific and concise.
    • Begin with six-month to one-year goals.
    • State it as if it has already been reached.
    • Use action modifiers.
    • Use emotion words (enthusiastic, happy).
    • State it in the present tense and be positive.
    • Use personal pronouns (I enjoy exercising every day. I weigh a trim, athletic 165 pounds)
3. Always direct your self-talk stimulation toward what you desire – positively.
4. Read your goal two to five times a day, or use a recording.
5. Break down bigger goals into smaller tasks.

Hilary Hinton “Zig” Ziglar (1926-2012) A Course in Winning audio tapes
1. Identify the goal.
2. Set a deadline for achievement.
3. List the obstacles to overcome.
4. Identify the people and groups to work with.
5. List the skills and knowledge required to reach your goal.
6. Develop a plan of action.
7. List the benefits.

Unmeasurable Goal Setting:
Once you focus on the qualities you desire you will get results.
     • Measurable: this week’s paycheck, first car, first house.
     • Unmeasurable: Daddy’s approval, Mommy’s hugs, first kiss, the sun on your face, looking into a lovely face that is looking back at you with love.

Seven Types of Goals:
1. Physical: appearance, medical, exercise, weight, nutrition
2. Family: loving, listening, supporting, forgiving, respecting, sharing time
3. Financial: earning, saving, investing, budgeting, insurance, credit
4. Social: friendship, humor, communication, self-confidence, manners, caring
5. Mental: imagination, attitude, education, reading, curiosity, interaction
6. Career: job satisfaction, effectiveness, training, understanding, purpose, competence
7. Spiritual: inner peace, meaning, gratitude, religious study, God-consciousness

Color: red




Goodwill

Definitions: (1) a friendly disposition; benevolence; (2) cheerful consent; willing

Proverb: Goodwill to all. — A Christmas wish

Quotes:
• Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. — Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) 30th president of the United States

• In a time of domestic crisis, men of goodwill and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics. — John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States




Commonsense

Definitions: (1) practical understanding or intelligence; (2) sound and prudent judgment

Derivation: Originally, commonsense was the faculty uniting and interpreting the impressions of the other five senses.

Sayings:
• Best to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
• You cannot buy time, happiness, or virtues.
• A person can look before committing and therefore learn from looking as well as from leaping. An animal ordinarily learns only by leaping.

Dictum: Today’s commonsense is yesterday’s science. — Neils Bohr (1885-1962) Danish physicist

Axiom: Correlation does not imply causation.

Quotes:
• Commonsense is instinct. Enough of it is genius. — George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish playwright
• A walking encyclopedia will walk over a cliff, for all its knowledge of cliffs and the effects of gravity, unless it is designed in such a fashion that it can find the right bits of knowledge at the right times, so it can plan its engagements with the real world. — Daniel Dennett (1942 -) American philosopher




Volition

Definitions: (1) having the power to choose; willful; (2) forming a purpose or an opinion; decisive; self-determinative

Derivation: Medieval Latin, “I wish” {17th century: a decision or choice made after deliberation}

Quotes:
• The true test of a leader is whether his followers will adhere to his cause from their own volition, enduring the most arduous hardships without being forced to do so, and remaining steadfast in the moments of greatest peril. — Xenophon (c. 430–354 BC) Athenian general, philosopher, & historian
• We see that every external motion, act, gesture, whether voluntary or mechanical, organic or mental, is produced and preceded by internal feeling or emotion, will or volition, and thought or mind. — Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891) Russian & American mystic & author




Versatility

Definitions: (1) competent to act in any situation; flexible; pliable; (2) turning with ease from one thing to another; deft; multifaceted; (3) self-adjusting in the face of complexity; resourceful; (4) having or capable of many uses or applications

Compatible Qualities: competence, communication, foresighted, patience

Quotes:
• In the long run, fancier [in nature] lasts longer since versatility is a virtue. — William H. Calvin (1939-) The River That Runs Uphill {1986}
• Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net result of our labors is an amazing variety of imperfectness. We are surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many different ways. — Samuel McChord Crothers (1857-1927) American Unitarian minister
      Note: Nonetheless, the quest for perfection will always open a new path.




Venerableness

Definitions: (1) worthy of honor or respect because of meritorious distinction; noteworthy; (2) deserving of deference; exalted; (3) worthy of admiration or reverence because of recognized goodness <often mingled with a degree of awe>; (4) worthy of praise; laudable

Quotes:
• Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man. — Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American Author
• Religion is among the most beautiful and most natural of all things – that religion which ‘sees God in clouds and hears Him in the wind,’ which endows every object of sense with a living soul, which finds in the system of nature whatever is holy, mysterious, and venerable, and inspires the bosom with sentiments of awe and veneration. — William Godwin (1756–1836) English philosopher & novelist

Symbol: an older person




VALUE

Divine Definitions: (1) The essence of worth; intrinsic virtue; THE ideal; (2) The ultimate desire; priceless; (3) Adherence to the highest principles; probity; (4) Worthy of the greatest admiration; estimable; cherishable; (5) The most precious treasure; important; useful; (6) The personification of all quality; attractive; appealing; (7) Possessing the most fascinating abilities

Comment: God is Value – Infinite Value. It is impossible for any (actual or potential) value of God to ever be lost. We embody value in our soul.

VALUABLE
Human Definitions: (1) having qualities worthy of esteem; being highly thought of; considered a treasure; (2) having significant monetarily, emotionally, personally, or spiritually; (3) the embodiment of all virtue; attractive; appealing

Synonyms: admirable, cherishable, estimable, precious, priceless, probity

Quote: We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit. — Edward Estlin [e. e.] Cummings (1894-1962) American poet

Consideration: Cloistered nuns and monks spend their whole lives in silence, praying. They pray for the pope, starving children, and the good of the planet. They believe they are having a positive effect. And yet, by all popular accounts, things are getting worse. So, are they wasting their time? No, because they are being positive. All positive energy has a dual effect. First, on a personal level, it is making them more real because they are becoming closer to the qualities that make up the universe. Those positive choices are of value in and of themselves. And second, the prayer energy is being used for something. It is positive energy; therefore, it must have a positive effect.

Observations:
• You are valuable. Recognition of your value may be external; you believe the evaluation of another because they love you. Or you can take an honest, private assessment of your own inner value.
• Einstein said you can only chase down the facts by what is observable. Science depends on it. On the level of being, the level of experience, you can actually get inside what you are observing via feelings and recognition of values. You can be on both sides of facts and truth. Observation can be both external and insightful.

Question: How do I experience experience?
     Note: By being existent on a higher level of reality. By embodying the higher values of positive qualities.




Unified

Definitions: (1) to act as one; in concert; (2) being in agreement; in harmony; (3) the totality of components; a person who has brought together their complex parts into a systematic whole

Quotes:
• He who experiences the unity of life, sees his own self in all beings, and all beings in his own self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye. — The Bhagavad-Gita, VI,29 (Written~400 BC-400 AD) {Published 1944}
• Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? — Stephen William Hawking (1942–2018) English theoretical physicist




Understand

Definitions: (1) the power to think and learn; the ability to make sense; intelligent judgment; (2) comprehension of knowledge; discernment; (3) fully aware not only of the meaning or nature of something but also of its implications; (4) a friendly or harmonious relationship; an agreement of opinion or feeling; an adjustment of differences; (5) patient and tolerant of growth; sympathetic; (6) an exaltation of intellection

Poetry:
Knowledge, so full of itself, flies
beyond the cosmos, while Wisdom,
only as ancient as the earth, tries
to follow, but staggers and stumbles,
held back by the short-legged pace
of Understanding, still merely a child.
— Katherine Solomon (1944-) American poet

Sayings:
• First understand the basics.
• To understand all is to forgive all.

Proverb: Walk a mile in another person’s moccasins. — Native American
     Note: This saying is encouraging us to see things from someone else’s perspective. Even though you will then be better able to see things how they see them, the common misunderstanding is that you will then agree with their point of view. As always, you will retain your own unique point of view. You cannot “become” the other person no matter how accurately you understand them. Knowing is not agreeing.

Note: This saying is encouraging us to see things from someone else’s perspective. Even though you will then be better able to see things how they see them, the common misunderstanding is that you will then agree with their point of view. As always, you will retain your own unique point of view. You cannot “become” the other person no matter how accurately you understand them. Knowing is not agreeing.

Dictum: They condemn what they do not understand. — Marcus Fabious Quintilian (35–100 AD) Roman educator

Quotes:
• It is good to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding. — Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) The Prophet {1923}
• Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. — Viktor Emil Frankl (1905-1997) Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, & Holocaust Survivor
• Master: In time, you will understand how.
  Student: And when I learn?
  Master: Then you will understand how much you have yet to learn.
— Warren Burton Murphy (1933-2015) & Molly Cochran (1949-) Grandmaster {1984}

Consideration: Oftentimes it is advisable to suspend your position to begin to understand someone else’s. If you can do both, you will be able to incorporate some of the other’s ideas, feelings, and sensibilities into your own. It is only fair to get a good idea of the other side, if for no other reason than to know where to draw the line.

Comment: When someone does or says something from out of left field, it is your left field you are referring to. It may be their pitcher’s mound.

Colors: indigo, yellow

Symbol: a silver key




Clarity

Definitions: (1) having the power of perceiving or comprehending quickly; discriminating <a clear intellect>; not confused or dull; (2) easily seen or comprehended <of your statements by others>; easily understandable; perspicuous; distinct; lucid; (3) free from obscurity <of others communications to you>; evident; manifest; indisputable; undeniable; (4) free from emotional perturbations; undisturbed; unruffled; serene; (5) free from guilt or blame; morally unblemished; innocent

Synonyms: acute, apparent, bright, limpid, obvious, orderly, plain, pure, vivid

Quotes:
• Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations.— Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian philosopher
In foggy weather you can see clearly the terrain that is near you and you often think that those who are further away from you are stuck in the fog. Although things might appear clear to you, those at a distance fancy that they are the ones in the clear and that you are stuck in the fog. — Benjamin Franklin (1705-1790) American author & statesman

Symbols: 1) crystal; 2) a calm blue sea; 3) a cloudless blue sky